bastard

/bas"teuhrd/, n.

1. a person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate child.

2. Slang.

a. a vicious, despicable, or thoroughly disliked person: Some bastard slashed the tires on my car.

b. a person, esp. a man: The poor bastard broke his leg.

3. something irregular, inferior, spurious, or unusual.

4. See bastard culverin.

adj.

5. illegitimate in birth.

6. spurious; not genuine; false: The architecture was bastard Gothic.

7. of abnormal or irregular shape or size; of unusual make or proportions: bastard quartz; bastard mahogany.

8. having the appearance of; resembling in some degree: a bastard Michelangelo; bastard emeralds.

9. Print. (of a character) not of the font in which it is used or found.

[1250-1300; ME < AF bastard, ML bastardus (from 11th century), perh. < Gmc (Ingvaeonic) *bast-, presumed var. of *bost- marriage + OF -ard -ARD, taken as signifying the offspring of a polygynous marriage to a woman of lower status, a pagan tradition not sanctioned by the church; cf. OFris bost marriage < Gmc *bandstu-, a n. deriv. of IE *bhendh- BIND; the traditional explanation of OF bastard as deriv. of fils de bast "child of a packsaddle" is doubtful on chronological and geographical grounds]

Syn. 6. fake, imitation, imperfect, sham, irregular, phony.

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